Irving Fradkin, Founder of Dollars for Scholars Program, Dies at 95

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Dr. Irving Fradkin, right, awarding a college scholarship to a student in 1959. He started the Dollars for Scholars program after noticing how few of his young patients in Fall River, Mass., planned to attend college.CreditScholarship America

In 1957, Irving Fradkin, an optometrist, declared his candidacy for the School Committee of Fall River, Mass., a struggling former mill town. He had been struck by how few of his young patients planned to attend college, mostly because they could not afford it, and a crucial plank in his campaign platform was for the city to rally community support for scholarships.

He was defeated, though.

“I’m sorry for you, Dr. Fradkin, but I’m even sorrier for the students,” he recalled his receptionist’s son’s lamenting. “You lost an election. We lost a college education.”

But Dr. Fradkin was undaunted. He figured that if each household in Fall River gave just one dollar (the equivalent of about $8 today), every graduating high school senior could be sent to college. The idea gave birth to Dollars for Scholars, a campaign he almost single-handedly began on a card table in his home, and by the end of 1958 (when tuition was typically well under $1,000 annually) it had delivered $5,000 to 24 local high school seniors.

Nearly 60 years later, it has evolved into Scholarship America, an organization that by its own estimate has overseen the distribution of $3.5 billion to more than 2.2 million students. Based in St. Peter, Minn., it also coordinates about 500 local Dollars for Scholars affiliates, which have awarded $600 million to about 750,000 students since 1958. And, for a fee, it advises or administers an additional 1,300 grant programs for corporations, foundations, associations and individuals.

Dr. Fradkin died on Nov. 19 at his home in Fall River. He was 95.

With his success as a doctor, Dr. Fradkin wrote in the introduction to his autobiography, “Dollars for Scholars” (1993), “I have fulfilled the dream of democracy.” Others could, too, he suggested, by using his example — he had worked his way through college at his father’s bakery — and by enrolling in an academic or vocational curriculum after high school with the help of a scholarship.

In 2014, Scholarship America announced its first Dream Awards — up to $15,000 to each of 12 needy students who had overcome obstacles to start college. The program was begun with a grant from the television anchorwoman Katie Couric, who also donated some of the proceeds from her book “The Best Advice I Ever Got: Lessons From Extraordinary Lives.”

Dr. Fradkin was an unabashed fund-raiser. He even called the White House collect to solicit support. He received congratulatory greetings from his home state senator, John F. Kennedy, and President Dwight D. Eisenhower and got his first $1 from Eleanor Roosevelt.

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Dr. Fradkin in 2009. His Dollars for Scholars program has evolved into Scholarship America, an organization that by its own estimate has overseen the distribution of $3.5 billion to more than 2.2 million students.CreditChristopher Martel

He recruited the comedian Sam Levenson, who used to teach Spanish at Samuel J. Tilden High School in Brooklyn, to host a fund-raising dinner at a Fall River restaurant. Mr. Levenson, who died in 1980, hailed Dr. Fradkin as “an optometrist with a vision.”

Dr. Fradkin said he had been inspired to solicit small contributions by the March of Dimes campaign, which was started to fight polio, and by the ubiquitous blue-and-white pushkes, or tin boxes, that families kept for loose change to donate to the Jewish National Fund.

He kicked off Dollars for Scholars with the help of Daniel J. McCarthy, the Fall River representative of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. The program was incorporated as the Citizens Scholarship Foundation of America and evolved into Scholarship America in 2003.

Under the program, students are encouraged to eventually repay the scholarships interest-free; this helps make the awards self-renewing. Among the early recipients was William K. Reilly, who became the nation’s environmental protection administrator under President George Bush, and who remembered Dr. Fradkin soliciting contributions on Fall River street corners in a cap and gown.

Irving A. (he said that he gave himself the initial and that it stood for Anything) Fradkin was born on March 28, 1921, in Chelsea, Mass. He was the youngest of seven children of Jewish immigrants, Abraham Fradkin, who came from Russia, and the former Eva Steinberg, from Poland.

He had planned to become a baker until he injured his thigh playing football and realized he could not endure long hours standing. When his vision failed and he got glasses, he decided to become an optometrist.

He graduated from what is now the New England College of Optometry in Boston in 1943 and married Charlotte Sheinfield. She survives him, along with his sons, Russell, who confirmed his death, and Robert; a daughter, Marlene Adams; four grandchildren; and 10 great-grandchildren.

After opening his practice in Fall River, Dr. Fradkin became active in civic affairs and, despite his defeat for the School Committee, emerged as something of a hometown hero in a city where the namesake falls was buried by expressways during the 1960s. In 1995, Fall River added the words “The Scholarship City” to its official seal.

Over time, Dr. Fradkin’s Dollars for Scholars reaped other unexpected dividends. In 1988, when he had a heart attack, the emergency room supervisor told him not to worry. After all, she said, she had gotten through nursing school with his program’s help.

Correction:

An earlier version of this obituary misstated Mr. Fradkin’s given name in one instance as William.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A30 of the New York edition with the headline: Irving Fradkin, 95; Founded Dollars for Scholars Program. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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